C. What a Feldenkrais Method^® practitioner knows, understands and does in practicing the Feldenkrais Method^®.

The practitioner/teacher:

1. Understands that all actions in the Feldenkrais Method^® are a product of a way of experiencing and thinking as originally developed by Moshe Feldenkrais, and structured in the curriculum of Feldenkrais Method^® Professional Training Programs. All expressions of the Feldenkrais Method^® in the design and teaching of AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT or in the implementation of a FUNCTIONAL INTEGRATION lesson, represent that way of thinking.
   
   
2. Is sensitive to the interdependency of acting, sensing, thinking, and feeling that constitute human activity, and recognizes that changes in movement influence all these factors.
   
   
3. Understands the rationale, design strategies and principles of FUNCTIONAL INTEGRATION and AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT lessons. This understanding can be implicit and/or explicit, empirical and/or cognitive.
   
   
4. Understands the effectiveness of and can communicate the basic learning strategies of the Feldenkrais Method^® in teaching AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT, such as:
   1. orienting to the process of learning and doing rather than working towards a goal;
   2. using slow, gentle movement;
   3. directing awareness toward sensing differences and perceiving whole inter-connected patterns in movement;
   4. allowing the student to find his/her own way with the lesson;
   5. directing students to move within the limits of safety by avoiding pain and strain.
      
      
5. Observes and interacts with students from the initial contact and interview in a manner that leads to the development of Functional Integration lessons coherent with the principles as stated above. This means the practitioner/teacher knows how to translate the way students present their problems into the framework of thinking of the Feldenkrais Method^®.
   
   
6. Distinguishes between solving a problem that the student presents and evoking a response designed to create a new way of thinking, feeling, sensing and moving.
   
   
7. Knows the difference between learning to accomplish a particular skill or function and learning how to achieve new strategies and possibilities for action in relation to one's intentions in the environment.
   
   
8. Uses his/her voice, body, presentation and presence in relation to the student's, so as to encourage a supportive environment for learning.
   
   
9. Continually reorganizes him/herself in relationship to perceived changes in the student undergoing AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT lessons and FUNCTIONAL INTEGRATION.
   
   
10. Contacts another person through touch in a manner that is supportive, non-invasive in intention, and non-corrective.
    
    
11. Meshes his/her movements with the easiest directions in which the student moves.
    
    
12. Becomes aware when support is given to the student, when quality of action improves, and when function becomes more integrated.
    
    
13. Alters his/her self-organization in order to evoke greater feelings of comfort, greater capacity for learning and improved ability to function in the student.
    
    
14. Has the necessary skills to evoke the student's self-regulating abilities.
    
    
15. Determines what movement patterns a person needs to learn in order to learn a function.
    
    
16. Makes distinctions between a more or less efficiently executed action, becomes aware of the presence of extraneous efforts and can feel where a student interferes with intended actions.
    
    
17. Detects changes in muscular patterns, skeletal configurations, respiration, and autonomic nervous system signs in both him/herself and the student.
    
    
18. Makes basic distinctions about differences in muscular tonus throughout the student's body and more importantly, knows how to find those differences by increasing one's own sensitivity when needed.
    
    
19. Is sensitive to the amount of input a student can receive during each lesson and regulates the intensity and duration of each lesson accordingly.
    
    
20. Can discuss and describe to others what his/her intentions are or were during a FUNCTIONAL INTEGRATION lesson.
    
    
21. Organizes FUNCTIONAL INTEGRATION lessons understanding both the symbolic and bio/mechanical aspects of self-expression and how they are interwoven.
    
    
22. Most importantly, knows how he/himself or she/herself, learns.

More AFG Standards of Practice:

A - What the Feldenkrais Method^® is and what it does.

B - What the Feldenkrais Method^® is not.

C - What a Feldenkrais practitioner knows, understands and does in practicing the Feldenkrais Method^®.

D - Organizing Processes of the Feldenkrais Method^®